NGOs in the Making of Human Rights

The making of law is a broad phenomenon which encompasses all manifestations, creativity, traditions and origins of rules through which they acquire the force of law to regulate the conduct of international actors. The stories of making of international human rights law and non-governmental organisations actions go hand in hand. In the nineteenth century, NGOs undertook the campaign for the abolition of slavery and the formulation of humanitarian law. A breakthrough came by adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948, which was followed by nine core international human rights treaties.